Mietzke's POST Holden Adventure

When you leave Holden:

Coping strategies

1) Allow for tears for up to two weeks, and yes shopping is overwhelming and the amount of plastic waste in this country is atrocious!

2)  Be gentle on yourself. People in the outside world don't walk around singing, saying hello, and dropping everything they are doing to help unload your groceries.  (It is ok to cry after shopping, maybe even necessary.)

3) You must stop crying then..Good God, Pull yourself together Man! Seriously two weeks of tears is quite enough.

4) Get a dog!  They are a pain in the butt but they are always happy to see you and can overlook your Holden clothing atire unlike the rest of the outside world.

5) Have someone who has been living in civilization take you shopping for things that might look like the cloths everyone else is wearing. Thrift shops are perfectly acceptable shopping venues although beware they do sell items resembling some of the sparkly night dresses often found at Holden formals (typially donated by Judy Clark.)  I have found that sparkly buttless dresses don't go over well as normal daily atire out here.

6) Keep sorting your trash.  I know it is time consuming and tedious but at least you are not sorting garbage from chalet 1 parties.

7) Have a service in your back yard at least once a week even if it is just a couple of you.  Light candles and sing songs.

8)  Eat lots of sushi and take long walks.

9)  Find a sacred place in nature close to where you live and go there often.  Memorize the textures and colors and make it yours.

10)  You are not at Holden anymore so, light candles and find time to be quiet.

11)  Also give yourself big scoops of ice cream.

12)  Buy yourselves a settlers game and teach a couple people how to play it.

13)  Find people tp play cribbage with.

14)  Swim with dolphins.

15)  You can Knit anywhere...make a hat!

16)  Visit as many different kinds of spiritual services as you can in a week.  You would be surprised at how many places have evening services on week nights.

17)  Find a Labryinth and walk it.

18)  Don't let the phone take you away from being a part of life.  It is a tool.  Use it, don't let it use you.

19)  Find other people who love Holden and share favorite stories.

20)  Exercise and pray.

21)  Take long drives (not too often because gas is expensive and wasteful, but it is fun to see new things and have a different freedom of movement.)

22)  Make lists of the things you are enjoying on the outside and things you would like to do.

23)  Ride a roller coaster.

24)  Pets are essential for rentry even a fish will do.

25)  Visit friends you havent seen in a while.

26)  Try new food.

27)  Go on a diet there is no one out here making fresh bread for you.

28)  Go on dates without everyone you know watching and talking about it.

29) When you are done with your diet learn how to bake bread.

30) Collect fall leaves and make a collage.

31)  Find ways to celebrate the seasons they happen everywhere even in California.

 

So,  I have been looking on petfinder.com wistfully thinking about having a dog in our lives again, and simultaneously freaking out about the possibility of having a dog because owning a dog means committing to being in the outside world for awhile.  I have found in moving out of Holden that my assumption is that I could and would go back for another stint soon, that the temperorary part of my life is where I am now and that at any moment I might go "home."  I still feel like I am on an "out" a very complicated and often stressful "out."  I was afraid that getting a dog would bring living out of Holden into a reality.  It did, and it feels right to add another layer to letting go and allowing myself to move into a different space.  I think it is good for the girls as well.

We visited the pound this week and found a cocker spaniel who was looking for a home and two days later we were bringing him home.  He is tan and white with freckles. He is five years old and it feels like he has lived with us for always.  He gets along well with kids and cats and is just a dream boat of a guy to have around.  He is about the happiest friendliest dog I have ever met and I am so glad we found him.  We Named him Jasper.

I guess this means we are really here, living on the outside, and it feels good even amidst all fo the missing of Holden that we do on a weekly basis.

 

The Earth was so parched

It did not know how to receive the rain

That steadily flowed

Down from the sky

For three days

 

Gathering in large puddles and ponds,

Rushing down streets

And over hard packed soil

 

The rain was patient,

 

It kept hammering away

Creating cracks and crevasses

Pushing through

Permeating the soil

Expanding and filling it

Feeding it with hope of new life

Making a holy messes all over town

 

Sometimes,

I play the role of Parched earth

 

An actor

In my own long drawn out drama

Dying for love

Feeling to the depths of my soul

That love is my only desire

I would do anything to have it

I often plead and bargain

For just a taste

 

But when Love comes in its downpour

I play the role of the fickle fiddler

Holding onto my old songs of woe

And my attachment

To my plight against The God’s

 

I resist and fight

The flow of liquid love

Until I am covered and eroding

Only opening to it one crack at a time

Holding out for a landslide

 

What if I allowed it to fill me

Expand my surfaces

Awaken new possibilities within

What if I set down my fickle fiddle

And made new song in the rain

Scooping up mud in my hands

Holding it up in thankfulness to the sky

 

Just think of the possibilities!

The joyful possibilities!

The rain is falling steadily
It is making a symphony of sound
Rattling on the fence
Ping ping ping on the tables
Splattering on the leaves and on the bear earth
If you listen closely you can hear
Each drop play out its moment
One perfect note among thousands
There is a pot outside of the window
That is filling with water
The sound the water makes in it has changed
Over the course of an hour
Deepening in tone as the pot fills
The drips and drops are gathering together
A rushing can be heard in the gutters and down the driveway
Sometimes I forget the homey comfort
Of a downpour that forces you inside
To watch and listen
It gives me permission to rest
To take a moment to sit and be
I love the rain
Filling the night with sound